Begin to Move Out of Your Comfort Zone

I rode my first ever time trials yesterday morning…a scary and nerve-wrecking experience. It was 50K (just a bit more than 31 miles) and it was two loops in the corn and soybean fields. The sun was fierce, the blacktop was radiating heat up, the wind was blowing right into our faces in at least two directions, it was hilly, and I had no idea what to expect.

As I rode, trying mightily hard to stay on the back wheel of my partner while it was her turn to pull, and trying even harder to push my body really hard so as not to disappoint her when it was my turn to pull, I thought about something my friend Nat Slavin said to me last week. He said something to the effect that I tend to take risk and to move out of my comfort zone quite often. He said this in the context of asking me to speak at an upcoming event, on the topic of how to move out of your comfort zone with ease.

I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t scared to death. Heck, I’m not even going to pretend I didn’t want to turn the car around and go back to bed yesterday morning. If it hadn’t been a two person time trial and I had someone counting on me to be there, I might very well have been a no-show.

But I showed. And I rode. And I finished. And I was completely out of my comfort box. Just like most of us, I have the fear of the unknown and, other than watching time trials during the Tour (which are A LOT shorter), I really had no idea what to expect. And that is scary. Moving out of my comfort zone with ease is just an illusion!

But that leads me to believe that we really are all capable of doing anything we put our minds to doing. Is it with ease? Likely not. Is it without being really scared? Definitely not. Might you even puke a time or two? For sure! But in business, in life, in athleticism, in your hobbies, none of us will get better if we don’t take risk and climb out of our comfort boxes…consistently.

So, I ask you, what is one thing you’re going to do this week – just one tiny thing – to take some risk and begin to move out of your comfort zone?

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[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Nikki Stephan. Nikki Stephan said: True! RT @patrickreyes: You'll never know what you can accomplish unless get out of your comfort zone! http://bit.ly/bKrP1r by @ginidietrich […]